After the Demon
by GroovyKat
Summary: Eager to get back out on a new adventure after Facing the Devil on Krop Tor, Rose asks the Doctor just what he wants to do next. His answer wasn't exactly what she expected to hear. Ten/Rose


A/N: Just a short bit of something that clawed at me to be written. I had a spare hour over lunch … so I used it… I like to think that I used it wisely …

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who. Not at all. Although I would like to point out that the amount of money I've spent on Doctor Who merchandise over the years should in some way give me some kind of stock in it … no? Dammit. Still not mine. Not any of it.

 _~~oooOOOooo~~_

"Hang on though, Doctor," Ida's voice crackled curiously through the Com. "You never really said. You two, who are you?"

"Oh," The Doctor said with a husky voice as he shared a look and a smile with Rose. He flicked up a lever on the TARDIS console. "The Stuff of legend."

Rose Tyler rolled her eyes and chuckled under her breath as she moved slowly away from him and ran her fingertips along the TARDIS console. She hummed an appreciative breath toward the ship. "I missed you."

The Doctor made a happy sound in the back of his throat at her words. He didn't look toward her, rather he continued to concentrate on the controls in front of him. "That's very kind of you," he answered back.

Rose slid a look of question toward him. "What was that?"

He looked up quickly, his eyes wide and his mouth gaped. "Oh," he managed on a fast breath. "Yes. That's right. I should respond in kind, shouldn't I?"

"Pardon me?"

His face fell from a look of surprise to an expression of warmth. "I missed you too." He looked back down at the console to hide the reddening of the apples of his cheeks.

The look that crossed Rose's face at that moment could be described as absolutely confused. She ran his words, and then her own, through her mind for a brief moment, and then her expression relaxed into soft amusement.

"I was talking to the TARDIS," she admitted with a chuckle.

His head shot up to once again look upon her with an expression of surprise. "Oh? Oh. Yes. Of course you were," he answered softly as he looked back down. He forced himself to pet a couple of almost condescending pats of his fingers on the console. His bottom lip jutted outward in a very slight pout. "I missed her too."

Rose purred deeply in the back of her throat and sidled across the console toward him. She lightly touched her hand to his cheek to draw his eyes up to hers. Her belly fluttered at the almost wounded look in his eyes. "Oh. I missed you too," she cooed with a smile as she drew his face toward hers and pinched at his cheeks. Her voice took on a baby-talk tone. "I missed my Doctor. Oh, yes I did." She erupted into laughter as he slumped, rolled his eyes, and then groaned. "Of course I did, you plum. _That_ doesn't need saying, now, does it?"

He watched her expression of light teasing as she gently petted at both cheeks and blew him a kiss. "I was worried about you," he offered gently as she stepped away and moved around to the other side of the console.

"I bet you were," she replied softly without really looking at him. "You always do." She hooked her hair behind her ear and let her lips puff out lightly as she exhaled through pursed lips. "I thought I'd lost you, you know." Her eyes flicked up briefly, then fell back to the console as she lightly rolled an innocent shoulder. "I-I didn't want to go on that rocket. I couldn't. I didn't want to just leave you there."

He watched her movements and scrutinized the unsure and insecure sharpness in each minute shift of her hands and head as she let her eyes wade through the disorganized mess of the TARDIS console. "You had to, Rose."

She pressed her lips tightly together and shook her head.

"I understand," he offered. "I _expected_ you to get on that rocket."

"They drugged me," she hissed quickly before he could go further.

His eyes widened. "They did _what_?"

She flicked her head up to look at him. All evidence of her unsureness and insecurity was gone. In its place was a steeled look of annoyance. "I refused to go. Refused." Her look fell from his and settled on a coral strut at her side. "I couldn't go and just leave you there."

"Rose…"

"They told me you were dead," she continued with a sniff. "But I knew you weren't. I _knew_. I know you better than they do, I know that it takes more than that to bring down the Doctor." She inhaled though an open mouth. "And so I refused to go. I said no, that I wasn't just going to leave you because you would never do that to me…"

He winced at the way her face tightened up for a moment in a manner that he believed was to stave off any tears. All he could do by way of response was to gently repeat her name.

She shook herself out and cast her eyes toward him again. "Anyway. So I said no. Next thing you know I have arms holding me in place and a needle was stuck into me. I woke up in the ship."

"I'm so sorry."

"Why," she said with a breath that was half laugh, half huff. "You didn't do it." She swallowed any further words and stepped backward as she watched him step toward her. "But I'm okay. It was for the best, yeah? I mean if they didn't then you would have lost more than just the Ood. You'd have lost me, too." She raked her hand through her hair and faked out a decent laugh as she looked everywhere but at him. "S'pose there are those rare moments where being drugged and abducted is actually a good thing, yeah?"

"I guess so," he offered dumbly. "I … guess."

She wiped harshly at her eyes and inhaled past her shaking breath. Her expression shifted to forced excitement as she slapped her hands on the console of the ship. "So? Where to now, then, Doctor? What great adventure do we take on now?"

He stared at her in silence for a moment, his unmoving eyes taking in every part of her standing before him.

"Come on, Doctor," she urged with a pirate's slur and a punch through the air. "What does my Captain want to do now? Skim the TARDIS over the peaks of the waves on the planet Slufunia? Let the grasses of Vasnyke tickle at our bare toes? How about just put the old girl on random and see where this beautiful ship wants to take us?"

He licked at the corner of his mouth and watched her with a light furrowing of his brows.

"Come on, Doctor," she pressed with a wink and a smile. "What do you want to do now? I'm at your mercy and willing to take your hand to rush into whatever, wherever you want to go." Her shoulder tipped up to her ear. "What do you want to do?"

"Right now," he offered inside a slightly croaky voice. He cleared his throat to begin again. "Right now. What I want to do…"

"Yes?"

"What I would really rather fancy doing right now, Rose Tyler, is make love to you."

There was no way on Earth – sorry, in this entire universe – that she heard him correctly. Absolutely no way, no how, did the Doctor just say what she thought he just said. She blinked her eyes wide and then let her brow knit together as she took in his posture before her. He wasn't moving toward her, not really looking at her, and there was definitely nothing at crotch level to indicate that he was feeling anywhere near as frisky as his words just suggested he was.

No. She heard him wrong. Just a rather vivid daydream fantasy.

Rose licked the roof of her mouth with her tongue and cleared her throat. She couldn't help the squeak in her voice when she finally spoke. "What was that?"

"I said that I'd like to make love to you," he repeated slowly. "If you want to of course. I'm not suggesting that I do something against your will. Love, and the making of, isn't exactly a one-sided thing, is it? Both parties have to be willing, of course…"

Okay.

She _had_ heard him correctly. Now, all she had to do was determine if their ideas of _making love_ were along the same lines. After all, who knew what a Gallifreyan Time Lord meant by _making love_? For all she knew it had a completely and utterly different meaning on Gallifrey than it did on Earth.

Kind of like the word _fanny_ and just how differently that was interpreted between North America and the United Kingdom.

Let's not make that mistake on board the TARDIS.

"When you say _make love,_ " she ventured carefully without really looking at him. "What are you _really_ saying, Doctor?"

He scratched at his head and lifted the side of his lip into a light curl of confusion. "I don't quite understand your question, Rose."

"Well," she began carefully as her fingers curled around the bar that edged the console. She clutched on tightly as though she expected her legs to fall out from under her at any moment. "On Earth, when you suggest _making love_ , it involves nakedness, sweat, beds, panting, begging…"

"Pleasure, longing, feeling," he added with a nod. "Yes. All of that. That is precisely what I am taking about when I say that I would very much like to make love to you."

Rose ran her hand down the length of her face and let it cup at her chin as she continued to look at him with confusion. "No. Seriously. Doctor. In suggesting that you want to make love to me, you're suggesting that the two of us get naked and writhe about in one of our beds,…"

"I was thinking mine," he confirmed quickly. "It's bigger than yours."

"Yeah," she breathed along a very long breath. "So part A," she pointed at his crotch. "Into, well…" she swept her hand down in the air over lower abdomen.

"I am familiar with the mechanics of it," he jumped in sharply. He watched as she folded her arms across her chest. "Really, Rose. I've been alive for over 900 years. I have a brilliant and wondrous mind. I'm familiar with the mating rituals of more than seven billion species…" He was fairly good to finish right there, but the cross of Rose's arms and her look of challenge forced him to finish that thought. "I am very familiar with the mating ritual – or love making – as performed by Humans, Rose."

"And you want to do that," she asked without loosening the fold of her arms across her chest.

"Yes, Rose."

"With me?"

"Yes."

"You wish to perform a _human mating ritual_ with me?"

He frowned. "Well when you put it like that you kind of take the mystique out of it, but yes, Rose. I do want to … engage … in the … mating ritual." He winced and shook his head. He waved his hand and curled a lip just slightly at the absurdity of what he was saying. "Rose. I don't want to put it like that and have you thinking that I'd view our union as nothing more than some kind on anthropological experiment."

"I would hope not."

"The bare fact of the matter is this." He walked toward her and set his hands lightly on her shoulders. He softly drew his hands down her arms to take her hands in his. "Rose. We've both just been through a rather traumatic couple of days. We both believed that we'd lost the other and had to feel the agony of that loss for what felt like an eternity before we came together again." He licked at his lip and looked down at their joined hands. "I want to. No. I _need_ to _feel_ you. I need to prove to myself – to us – that we made it out. That we didn't lose each other. That we're alive…"

"So," she interrupted with a sideways glance at him. "A fast rut up against the console, then?"

The question offered him a rather raunchy image that startled the rest of his words back down his throat. He released one of her hands to cough against his fist and then shoved that fist into his trouser pocket. "I think a coupling against the console would be rather insulting and offensive to the TARDIS, don't you?" He frowned. "Not to forget rather uncomfortable for you. She isn't exactly all smooth and cushioned like my bed is, and I really would prefer that you were in a place of comfort when I make love to you."

Rose shuddered at his proximity and at his words and their promise, but she couldn't erase that little seedling of doubt that continued to sprout questions in her mind. She needed clarification before she would allow her heart to participate in this little _adventure_ he had planned. "So, Doctor," she managed weakly.

"Yes, Rose," he breathed huskily as he let his nose graze at the shell of her ear.

She shuddered against him. "Will this just be sex, or are you truly going to take that step across the line and truly make love to me?" She felt him stiffen against her and took that as her cue. With a swallow she managed to step out of his hold. "Because there is a big difference between the two of them, and I need to know which one you're offering before I take your hand and _run_ with you."

Le let out the smallest of frustrated huffs at her continuing confusion. "Rose, _look_ …"

"And don't you dare try and suggest they're both the same thing, because they aren't. Just because the mechanics appear to be the same doesn't mean that there's no difference between the two."

He stood back from her and leaned a hip against the console with a light huff. He folded his arms across his chest and crossed his legs at the ankle, then swept one hand toward her in a request for her to continue.

"I mean if you want a one-off five minute screw against a wall or something to release the pressure, then you're better off just going back to your room and having a quick wank, because I don't play that game."

He pressed his lips together and gave her a nod to tell her he was listening and that she was welcome to continue talking. And he was – listening that is. While he knew that he should be highly frustrated right about now with her continued questions, but he found himself more amused and endeared even further toward his insecure little pink and yellow human girl with every timid word that left her delicious lips

"I don't believe in one-night stands, Doctor. Never have and never will."

"That's good to know," he muttered behind a hidden smile.

"It's also very important, Doctor," she continued. "Because I'm a one-man kind of girl, and I expect the man I am with to be a one-girl kind of man."

"A commitment," he stated softly.

"Mmm-Hmm," she hummed in agreement. "Do you understand?"

He stared at her blankly for a very long ten seconds before he finally let himself believe that she'd finished talking. Not that he didn't find her stammering through it completely adorable, because he did … very much so. With his brilliant little human girl becoming so much more self-assured and confident with each passing day and each new adventure, it was nice to see that there was still one thing – at least one thing in the universe – that was still able to challenge her and take her off her guard.

He was beyond thrilled to know that _that_ one thing was him.

"My beautiful Rose," he finally managed after she'd prodded him with a call of his name for the third time since she'd asked him if he understood. "You truly are a remarkable woman."

The look that crossed Rose's features at that very moment was of absolute and utter confusion. As she traced back what she'd said to him she could find no particular place in which she had proven that she was anywhere near _remarkable_.

"Let me tell you about love making for a time Lord."

 _That_ took her attention off her quandary. With rapt attention and wide eyes, she spun toward him. "Please. Please do. I would _love_ to know."

He remained in his lean against the console and dropped his head as he smiled. "The only bigger question in the universe is _Doctor Who_?"

"Oh, I know."

He looked up to her, with his mouth still set in a smile, and held his slouch against the console's edge. "Making love to a Time Lord, well where do I start with that?"

"Oh, any _where_ you want."

The Doctor chuckled at that. "Right then. So. Time Lords and making love. To put it bluntly, it doesn't happen." His smile fell only slightly at her gasp and breathed question of _what_?

"Oh," he said with a chuckle. "Not in many millennia, anyway." He shrugged. "Far too primal for the mighty Lords of Time to engage in, _really_." He shorted and pulled his rump from the edge of the console to rock back on his heels. "Which would probably explain why they were all so uptight and pompous."

"Lack of nookie will tend to do that, I suppose," Rose offered gently. "Especially if they were also against the ..uh … act of…"

"Autoerotic stimulation, yes," he chuffed. "While I won't suggest that it was never performed among the Lords of Time, it was rather fiercely frowned upon." A brow slowly lifted on his brow. "Which then begs the question, Rose Tyler who doesn't engage in one night stands, how have you managed to retain such a magnificent positive and cheerful disposition?"

"Let's get back to Time Lords, shall we?" She peeped with a face reddening with horrific speed. "Not me. Let's not talk about me."

"And why not," he pressed as he glided a single stride across the grated flooring to stand mere inches from her. "I want to learn everything there is to know about you."

"I'm not the universe," she pleaded desperately. "I'm not anywhere near as fascinating." She whimpered as he moved a pair of inches closer to her. "There's so much more, out there, to learn, yeah?"

"And if I told you that _you_ , Rose Tyler, are my universe?"

She inhaled a sigh as she took a stride backward to escape the invisible tractor beam of his that drew her toward him. "I would call you a very corny fellow who needs to work on his pickup lines."

He gave her a wink, but didn't advance any further. Instead he tipped his head to look up at her with an impossibly seductive boyish grin through his fringe. "So how about it, Rose Tyler? Would you like that our next adventure to happen in my bedroom?"

"That is so much worse," she moaned into her hand in an attempt to seclude her shudder of thrill. "Go back to the talk of the universe and me being one to you."

"Rose." He let out a lightly disappointed breath. "Is this your way of you letting me down gently?"

She separated the fingers covering her eyes and looked at him through the spaces between them. "How do you mean?"

He smiled weakly. "I just told you that I want to make love to you, which for a Gallifreyan – especially a Time Lord – is a pretty monumental thing. It's not something I'm taking lightly." He cleared his throat and let one of his brows drop low enough to lightly obscure the vision in that eye. "And rather than taking me up on the offer, you're using every trick in the book to let me back out of it." He took her elbows in his hands. "If you want to say no, I'm not going to get upset. I'll accept it. You and me. The Doctor and Rose Tyler. Best friends. Nothing more."

"Do you _want_ more," she queried on a voice so quiet he barely heard her.

"Oh yes," he answered breathlessly. "I do, Rose. I really do." He tipped his fingers against her elbows in a request for her to bring her arms up around his neck. He smiled against her cheek as she obliged his request. "I already thought that we were."

She drew back her face to look into his eyes, setting her nose against his. "I always thought that, too, Doctor, but then you kept doing things that…" She sighed and let her hands drop from his neck. "That told me otherwise."

As her hands fell and slid down to his chest, the Doctor quickly grabbed them both and returned them to their rightful place around his neck. "Don't give up on me," he urged in a whisper. "This is all new to me. I'm struggling with it, with knowing what to do."

Her forearms rested on his shoulders, but she had yet to clasp her fingers around his neck. "New to _what_ , Doctor?" she sighed softly. "I would've thought, at over 900 years old that there was nothing that was _new_ to you anymore."

"By the Gods, if I'd experienced everything that the universe had to offer I may as well give up." He blinked slowly and gave her a lazy smile. "There _are_ still some _firsts_ that I have yet to experience," he admitted as he slid his arms around her waist to secure her tightly against him. "Plenty of them in fact."

"Such as," she ventured timidly.

"Falling in love for one," he said quickly and with absolute sureness. "Now that isn't to say I've never experienced love. Oh, I've loved. Sure I have. I know what _love_ is and how much it can tease, taunt, hurt and maim you. Been there and done that more than once, thank you very much."

"Oh," she breathed as she shifted her arms once more to attempt to peel herself away from him. "Okay."

He caught her retreating hands and returned them to their spot behind his neck. He wasn't shy in clasping the fingers of both her hands together to secure them around him. "Being _in_ love. Now. _That_ was an emotion that I found to be rather shocking that a man like me should have fallen into." He let his eyes shift and lock onto hers. "And before you even consider questioning it, Rose Tyler. I'm talking about you and how I am _in love_ with _you_ , okay? Noone else. Just you."

"Oh," she whimpered softly "You … you're…"

"Yes, Rose," he answered quickly before she could possibly try to believe anything else. "I am. Have been for a fair while I would expect. I just didn't take notice of all of the signs and symptoms of it, which is rather embarrassing to say, really, me: Time Lord. Not to mention that I call myself the _Doctor_. Symptoms. Should be my _thing_ , yeah?"

"I guess," she replied with a smile as she carefully tried to process this new information. "I mean if a stupid ape like me is able to recognize the symptoms of it and make the determination about how in love I am with a silly alien git…."

"I haven't called you a stupid Ape in quite some time, Rose," he admonished lightly with a tug of his hands on the small of her back to pull her yet tighter against him. "So please stop bringing that up." He chuckled against her ear, wet teeth against her dry skin. "And onboard the TARDIS, you're the alien, not me." He hummed a thoughtful breath as he let his lips trail a scorching line along her jaw. "My exotic alien girl."

She whimpered against his ministrations. "So. Um. I'm going to guess that your offer for our next adventure is still on the table?"

"Oh yes," he growled predaciously against her throat. "Although I thought we'd established that doing it on the table was not an option."

"That was the Console."

"Oh yes," he recalled with a smile as he teased at her mouth with his, nipping, but not quite falling into a true kiss. "Indeed. Console is bad; table is worth considering at another juncture."

"So definitely more than just this time, yeah?"

"Oh I certainly hope so."

She chased his lips with hers as he continued his nipping assault, yet denied her a thorough connection. "Your bed is good, yeah? Still good?"

"Very good," he answered with a nod as he continued to nip with hungry lips at her mouth, nose, chin and jaw. "Best place in the TARDIS for it."

She was still trying to capture his mouth fully with hers, and found herself becoming increasingly frustrated at the chase. Finally, she separated her interwoven fingers from behind his neck and slid her hands to cup each of his cheeks. She held firm and glared into his face as his lips continued to pucker. "Keep still will you?"

"Hmmmm?"

"Because so help me, Doctor. If you don't kiss me proper, and I mean a deep and decent snog that should drive me to my knees, then there will be no new adventure involving the sleeping section of this glorious ship."

His puckering lips stretched into a smile. "Well," he drawled long before dragging his tongue across his lip. "When you put it that way, Rose Tyler, how can I possibly resist?"

"You seem to be doing just that."

"Let me rectify that right now." He ended the word with a growl as he snatched his face forward to fiercely claim her mouth with his own. Her gasp opened her mouth to his, and he wasted no time in plundering it with his desperate and demanding tongue.

Rose whimpered under his assault. Her knees weakened and wobbled beneath her and threatened to drop her completely away from him. She suddenly dipped at the knees as they started to fail, and dropped enough that she should have separated from his mouth completely. He held firm, however, and stooped into her drop.

The Doctor grinned against her mouth as she stumbled, but didn't let her fall from him. As she fell, he moved with her, maintaining their bruising connection.

Rose clutched at the back of his neck, both hands hooked firmly together. She let his movements lever her backward or forward, let him pace the kiss, and let him decide exactly when and where they were going to go from here.

Finally, he pulled his mouth away from hers and panted a quick breath as he pressed his forehead against hers. "So. Rose…"

"Yeah?" she panted, drawing her quickened breath in time with his.

"How are your legs?"

"Don't be so smug," she chided lightly. "Yes. You weakened them. Good boy."

He chuckled a self-satisfied laugh. "Can you walk on your own, or do I need to carry you to my room?" His brows danced as he asked his question. "Because I'm good to go with whatever option works for you."

She slid her hands into his, intertwining the fingers of both hands with his. She pressed her chest in against his and looked up to him with hooded and darkened eyes. "Why don't we get there the same way that we always do, Doctor?" She asked him huskily.

He purred. "And what's that?"

She stepped back from him, drawing out his arms with enough stretch that she found herself looking down along her shoulder at him. Her answer was breathless and dramatic. "Run."

His breath escaped him in a tremor as her single breathy word punched a primal jolt directly into his groin. He grinned darkly and stepped around her toward the doorway that led to the corridor that led to his bedroom. He licked at his lip, leaned in to her ear and held tightly onto her hand. With the very slightest of tugs he drew her toward him.

"Run."


End file.
